UX & Search Intent in 2025: Link Building Strategies

To achieve long-term success with your SEO campaigns and stay ahead of the competition, you need to stay current as the SEO landscape evolves. SEO has undergone a significant transformation over the last few years, with Google aiming to provide the best results to users, so brands need to know what they can do to rank higher in search engine results pages (SERPs). In 2025, prioritising the user experience (UX) and search intent is one of the most effective approaches. This post will explore the importance of UX and search intent and offer a few strategies for optimising your website. Read on to find out more.

UX & SEO

In 2025, UX is one of the most important SEO ranking factors. This dates back to 2001 with the introduction of the Page Experience update, which introduced Core Web Vitals as a ranking signal. Core Web Vitals measure real-world metrics that affect the user experience, including loading performance, interactivity, and visual stability. Therefore, it is crucial that you focus on improving the UX not only in terms of providing a smooth, seamless, and enjoyable experience for your website visitors but also to boost your search engine ranking.

Search Intent & SEO

Search intent is another key ranking factor in 2025. Essentially, this is the purpose behind a user’s query, and there are generally four main types of search intent:

• Informational: Looking for information to answer their questions, such as “how to optimise website for SEO”.

• Navigational: Users looking to find a specific website, such as “Facebook login”.

• Transactional intent: Users ready to complete a transaction, whether making a purchase or subscribing, such as “Buy iPhone 15”.

• Commercial investigation: Planning a purchase but looking for more information, such as “best laptops 2025”.

Search intent has become a more prominent factor due to the rise of AI, with Google’s AI-driven algorithms capable of detecting search intent with remarkable accuracy. This means that businesses now need to match content to the user intent, such as sending a user ready to purchase to a product page instead of an informational blog post.

How to Improve UX

So, what steps can you take to improve the UX and, in turn, your search engine ranking? Here are the main areas to focus on:

Optimise for Mobile

These days, Google uses mobile-first indexing and over 50% of web traffic comes from mobile, so you need to make sure your site is optimised for mobile. This means ensuring content is easy to read on a small screen, images load properly, and tappable buttons are used for navigation.

Improve Site Speed

These days, people will not wait around for a website to load. You can improve the loading time of your website by compressing images, implementing server-side caching, and minimising the use of JavaScript.

Use Intuitive Navigation

It is frustrating when a website is difficult to navigate. Therefore, you want to structure your website logically with breadcrumb navigation, use internal linking, and make sure your main navigation is simple and easy to use.

Make Your Website Accessible

You must also make sure that your website is as accessible as possible for all users. This is important from an ethical standpoint, but also in terms of UX and SEO. Google favours websites that are accessible, so be sure to use proper heading hierarchy, add alt text to images, and ensure good colour contrast.

How to Align Content with Search Intent

Moving on to search intent, you should first perform research by searching for the keyword you are targeting and looking at the top results. Consider what kind of content the top results are (product pages, blog posts, etc), what format is used, what the tone is, and what questions the content answers.

It is then a case of reverse-engineering your own content to align with search intent. If you are targeting “How to optimise website for SEO”, for example, then you should create a high-quality, step-by-step guide to website optimisation. If you are targeting “best SEO agencies in London”, you can create a comparison piece or listicle looking at the top agencies and their benefits/drawbacks.

Useful Tools

It can be daunting to know how to get started with improving the UX and aligning content with search intent, but there are some handy tools that will help you get started and monitor your progress. These include:

• Google Search Console: Determine what searches bring users to your website.

• Google Analytics: Monitor bounce rates, engagement time, and user journeys to fine-tune.

• Hotjar or Microsoft Clarity:  Analyse UX with heat maps and session recordings.

• Surfer SEO: Optimise content for on-page SEO

• Answer the Public: Identify the questions users are asking and the intent behind keywords.

Staying Current

It is also important to realise that improving user experience, aligning content with search intent, and SEO, in general, is an ongoing process. Therefore, you need to commit to monitoring your efforts, identifying areas to improve, and staying current with all the latest trends and developments in the SEO field.

Of course, this can be challenging, especially when you have many other important areas to focus on. This is why it is worth considering hiring the services of an experienced digital marketing agency specialising in SEO. They will have expertise and understand all of the latest trends and developments so that they can develop effective strategies that will help you leapfrog the competition and increase organic traffic to your website. This can also free up time and energy to focus on other areas.

In 2025, it is vital that you understand the impact of UX and search intent on SEO rankings and know how to incorporate these key elements into your SEO strategy. SEO is constantly evolving and changing, and these have become two of the most important factors when it comes to SEO ranking. By improving user experience and aligning content with search intent, you can climb the SERPs, leapfrog the competition, and increase organic traffic, all while providing the best possible experience for your target audience.